Teacher moonlighting: evidence from the US Current Population Survey

Abstract

This article reports new evidence on teacher moonlighting from the US Current Population Survey. I investigate the determinants of teacher moonlighting and examine the effect that the teacher moonlighting has on the number of hours teachers spend on their primary job. I find that male teachers and teachers with advanced degrees are more likely to moonlight, but teacher pay appears to have little or no effect on the propensity to moonlight. I also find that holding a second job reduces the amount of time teachers spend on their primary jobs by about 1 h per week. Thus, teacher moonlighting may have harmful effects on education, though the effect on hours worked is neither trivial nor especially large.